I’m Gender-Fluid. Vogue, Got a Minute to Talk About This New Cover?

It's simple, really: If you're going to talk about a marginalized community, talk to that community.

By
Jacob Tobia

Jul 14, 2017

VOGUE

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First things first: I could look at a Zayn Malik in an Alexander McQueen peacock-print suit literally forever; I want to see Gigi Hadid in bright red, oversize Dries Van Noten tailoring every. Damn. Day. It is an indisputable fact that the looks sported by Zayn and Gigi (and younger brother Anwar Hadid) for August’s Vogue are fire. The shoot is exquisite. The styling, divine.

The gender politics? Not so much.

Because rather than just position Zayn and Gigi as #RelationshipGoals, Vogue is labeling them as #GenderfluidGoals, and that's a problem — one that's already seen a major backlash on social media. Yes, it’s great that Zayn, Gigi, and Anwar are comfortable with gender fluidity, at least conceptually. Zayn sometimes wears Gigi’s T-shirts; “so what? It doesn’t matter if it was made for a girl," he tells Vogue. "It's not about gender ... it's about, like, shapes," Gigi adds. That they dabble in each other’s closets and swap clothes is adorable; I, for one, would kill for access to either of their wardrobes. And, sure, it’s wonderful that they are in touch with their gender as a site of self-expression — by normalizing gender fluidity as something that a straight cisgender couple can engage with, the article could’ve actually been fairly radical.

But Gigi and Zayn are not the faces of the nonbinary or genderqueer movement as Vogue would have its readers think — strictly speaking, Zayn isn't really wearing any clothing you'd view as "women's" in his shots. (I mean, Vogue, if you're going to make Zayn a new face of the genderqueer community, the least you could do is give us a solid, smoldering portrait of him in a ballgown with a bold lip. That would have likely overwhelmed me to the point that you'd get a pass.) While they may be “part of a new generation embracing gender fluidity,” they certainly aren’t at the forefront of that change; rather, they are the beneficiaries of activism that transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been leading for generations — plural. And in the context of this shoot, they’re appropriating those efforts.

Recently, the fashion world has gotten really into gender “transgressive” fashion. On the back of the trans movement, designers at a number of major fashion houses have embraced a slightly more gender-fluid aesthetic on their runways. And boy, oh boy, do they love to pat themselves on the back for it (many, including Olivier Rousteing, Gucci's Alessandro Michele, and J.W. Anderson are quoted doing so in Vogue's piece). As if they are revolutionaries for putting a man on a catwalk in a floaty silk shirt and high heels. As if they are totally radical for *gasp* putting a woman in a blazer! (Can you imagine? In a fashion show? In Paris??? Quel scandale!)

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As a genderqueer writer and producer who’s been doing this whole “gender bending” thing since I was 2 years old (way ahead of the curve, according to Vogue), I’m fed up. What’s so annoying about this new and sanitized “gender progressive” aesthetic is that it curates gender-fluid identities for those in the cultural elite in a way that totally whitewashes the lived experiences of gender-nonconforming people. And it co-opts those experiences in the name of being “edgy,” or seeming in touch with the "growing cohort of 'fluid' young people on Tumblr" whom Vogue's writer acknowledges "crisscross the XX/XY divide" (far more than Zayn or Gigi do) but doesn't think to speak with barely at all for her feature.

Let me spell it out for you: Unlike how this new Vogue cover shoot presents it, the lived experience of being gender-nonconforming is rarely that fun and glamorous. Quite frankly, it can be a harrowing experience. It looks like being shunned by a family member at your own college graduation (summa cum laude from Duke, for the record) because you chose to wear a dress. It looks like being spit on in public, or like being terrified to leave the house because the night before, someone on the subway yelled that you should be set on fire. On an average walk through New York City in a dress, I will receive anywhere between 10 and 20 slurs. They are hurled at me with impunity, with complete disregard for my personhood, let alone my feelings. From “What is that?” to “Hey tranny!” to “What the fuck?” to “Oh my god, look at that faggot.” And for many trans and gender-nonconforming people, it looks like being physically assaulted or worse.

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Using my identity, using the identities and struggles and activism and brilliance of gender-nonconforming and nonbinary people in order to spice up your fall cover of two cisgender celebrities is not OK, Vogue. In fact, it's worse still — mainstream fashion content celebrating gender nonconformity is rarely created with actual gender-nonconforming people included in any part of the process. Throughout the creation of this Vogue cover, I would be surprised if a single gender-nonconforming person saw a buck (though I would be thrilled to be proven wrong on this point).

Now in the case of gender, I admit that it can get a bit tricky — no one really owns gender nonconformity per se. Who am I to say that Gigi Hadid isn’t gender-nonconforming enough? But I think it’s absolutely fair to say that neither Zayn nor Gigi present publicly as gender-nonconforming people on a regular basis, nor have they built their careers while challenging gender norms. If anything, Zayn and Gigi have done the opposite, using fairly conventional masculinity and femininity to build their respective brands.

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This, then, is flagrant cultural appropriation — taking the symbols and ideas that were created by a group of oppressed people and using them, without credit, collaboration, or compensation, to elevate people who are not a part of that oppressed group. When "gender bending" culture comes into the mainstream — to the cover of Vogue for example, a place that it rightfully deserves to be — it should be gender-nonconforming people, not cisgender people presented as gender-nonconforming people, who get to put it there.

So Anna Wintour, the next time you want to talk about all the ways that young people today are challenging gender constructs, I’m going to need you to call an actual trans/gender nonconforming person (to list just a few examples, there's Alok Vaid-Menon, Danielle Cooper, Jeffrey Marsh, Hari Nef, Alex Newell, EJ Johnson, Elliot Fletcher, Grace Dunham, Kelly Mantle, or Tyler Ford — or preferably, just call me!), put them on the cover (again, I’m open to the idea), and accompany that cover with a nuanced article that stops reducing gender-nonconforming people to an aesthetic and starts treating us as actual, living, breathing, courageous, brilliant human beings. We are not some flash in the pan fad; we are the future of fashion itself. OK?

But seriously Anna, call me. I will even consent to filming one of those grueling “73 Questions” videos. I will answer every. Single. One.

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